Craving Change

I completed the Craving Change workshop that has been put on by Primary Care, where the dietician suggested much good stuff, but never really addressed cravings like I have. There were some thinking models, all of which are incomplete. It was a reminder of how fucked up our current culture is, and how far I have regressed from our current culture in my thinking about food.

She introduced a concentric circle model of the reasons for eating, but I think it is correct, but not in the correct order. The primary is energy, but out from that should be a biochemical ring, for those that eat because of excess insulin, lack of leptin signaling, recalling that high insulin blocks leptin signaling, and therefore lower carbohydrate, therefore lower insulin is required for weight loss.

The next should involve a change in thinking, a change in beliefs, to some form of eating small three or four times in the day, regardless of hunger. This change in beliefs, and subsequent required action is the portion that I have been struggling with these last years, with attached weight gain. This was totally absent from the model.

Along with the foregoing, there is a related biochemical ring, that of the cortisol, serotonin, dopamine struggle going on in the brain. Cortisol and excitement drive eating, as does dopamine. Too much brain stimulus... drive both ends of the three brain chemical dance, only satisfaction and contentment, aka not struggling is neutral in the drive to eat. Anything we do drives eating, it is the absence of effort that must accompany sustained weight loss. That is not made clear. Taking on weight loss as a job is fine for weight loss and regain cycle; that is what is promoted. There is little psychological information available about life between the cycles of loss/gain. That is what is missing from society, as it exists today. I am only concerned with this life today, that is all we have.

Outside those rings are environment, emotional, social, availability, issue rings. Food addiction, and behavioral addiction to eating are not considered, yet we know that these are real and often the driving force in overeating. These mask learned behaviors that forced epicgenetic changes, reinforcing the driving of overeating. Staying away from food pushers is easier than resistance in their presence. That explains much of the problem.

The solution is understanding the problem and changing my core beliefs to something else from what society has trained into me. Many foods are poisons. Food pushers must be avoided. Do not take to much food. I need more carbs than the LCHF people to avoid the chemical/liver craving, but not many.